I finished going through my old journals looking for spiritual experiences I wrote about. Overall, I guess the spiritual things that built my belief in God and my belief that the Mormon church is true were mostly good feelings of joy and peace at church, at Girl’s Camp, at the temple, at seminary, or talking to friends and family about the Gospel. The church always has been one of the biggest parts of my life, but by high school I was committed Mormonism on a very deep level. I really really believed it was God’s true church, and I believed all of the things the church taught. I can’t emphasize enough how important the church has been to me. I based my life’s decisions around my belief in the church. I went to BYU (which I loved) because I was excited about the spiritual experiences I could have there (and BYU was amazing that way…I loved the devotionals, religion classes, everything. I should write more about BYU sometime). Sometimes I thought about dating guys I thought were cute in high school and I always decided it was better not to try because they weren’t Mormon. My whole life has revolved around the church, and that has always seemed to be a good thing, until now I guess.
A Life Wide Open 